As we Macintosh pundits approach this year’s WWDC, everybody likes to speculate on what kind of bombshell is going to be dropped on us in San Francisco. In years past, I’ve always reflected on the announcements and said “Oh yeah, that makes sense! Why didn’t I think of that?!” Well this year I’ve tried to do a pre-emptive strike using what I know about the players and the IT landscape to formulate Mr. Jobs’ next move.

So I want to focus on what Apple and its partners need to do to fill their gaps. I think the Macintosh platform’s biggest weakness is its reliance on Microsoft Office for productivity software. Microsoft has always built solid products for Mac but they were always just a bit behind or a bit incompatible with their Windows equivalents. Entourage does 90% of what Outlook does and it lacks where it hurts – in enterprise settings. Word for Mac doesn’t have the same Macro or OOXML support as its PC namesake. Powerpoint files are still not 100 percent compatible between platforms. Basically, Apple and its customers get the short end of the stick.

Add to this the big industry move to Web 2.0 applications and “the Cloud” that is transforming the technology landscape and you have a climate for change. I don’t think Apple wants to wait on Microsoft to delegate how its business applications will work. I think Apple would probably like to move forward with a leading edge partner like, say, Google and create this business rather than follow in it. But how will this be done?

OK, I admit this: I am basing this on some facts and some speculation but if you can stay with me here, this might all make some sense:
 

1. Steve Jobs admitted that .Mac has been lackluster lately and needs some help...and that help is coming, soon.  
2. Eric Schmidt, Apple Board Member and Google CEO, said that there are going to be a lot of Apple-Google partnerships because they have "common competitors". Common competitors==Microsoft. Microsoft's Bread and butter==Office.  We've already seen a flurry of Google Apps for Macintosh, the GMaps and Gmail on the iPhone, but why not Google Docs and Spreadsheets integrated into .Mac? 
3. Google has cheap, fast, plentiful disk space.  All they want is to search it and advertise on it (monetize it).  Gmail kills .Mac Mail.  Calendar/IM/addressbook integration?  Diskspace?  Spam detection?  Google is spending $5/domain for Apps users.  They want more people.  Apple would be happy to offload the .Mac headache on Google.  
4. Using iChat as a guide, we know that another network (AOL) allowed .Mac users their own namespace xxx@mac.com as AIM names.  It would not be surprising at all if Google did the same thing in Apps.
5. We know that iChat in Leopard has a special account preference for GTalk accounts.  Not that you currently can't use ANY Jabber server in iChat.
6. It has been 18 months since iWork was last updated.  Lots of time to do fun things.  I would love to see Apple enter the Blog editing game here - where MarsEdit, Ecto, Journaler are sweeping up.  This would be a serious game changer for the Pages.app/MS Word rivalry on the Mac Platform. 
7. Google needs a Keynote type of presentation tool, Apple needs a spreadsheet tool.
8. Throw Sun - OpenOffice.org into the mix.  Both Apple and Google have been playing nice with Sun lately.
9. iWork.  This might just be the most important piece of the puzzle.  There are so many things that can happen here,  I am going to break it down into another subset.

• iWork could be a caching front end for Google docs and Spreadsheets.  Use it when you are on an airplane, at grandma's house with no Internet, in the subway, heck it's so good, why not use it when you are worried about connectivity dropping.  As long as we are on the subject, why not use it all of the time you are on your own computer?  The Web application interface is nice, but not Native Application nice

• As long as we are talking about applications, what is stopping Apple from porting iWork and iLife applications to Windows?  Quicktime and iTunes already enjoy a large following in the Windows camp.  A few more ice cubes in hell perhaps?  
• OR, and I realize we are getting alittle crazy here, what if Apple sells a Virtual Machine for Windows much like the opposite of Parallels Coherence mode.  Run Leopard anywhere!  Boot from a Google hosted OS!   Not a full version mind you but a stripped down version like they are throwing into AppleTV and the iPhone.  Install small Google/Apple app on your Windows desktop.  Parallels is around 40 megs.  About the same size as iTunes/Quicktime.  Your OS and Files sit in the cloud.  Can be done, Why not?  OK, I realize not everyone has Fiber in their house yet.

Maybe in a few years?  We'll see.  But as for WWDC?  I think there is a good chance that .Mac will integrate with Google Apps.  Why not?  It makes sense for all parties.